Monday, January 25, 2016

Will You Be Able To Collect Money For Your Medical Doctor In 2016?

By Lonnie Greenfield


The world is forever changing in the medical industry. Many men and women that have been in the industry for more than a decade will tell you that the new ICD-10 is confusing for many people that do billing. A lot of billing experts today say that the coding is hard because of how much information you have to know. ICD-9 was not as difficult because there were only around 14,000 codes. These codes were around for about 5 years. In today's world, medical billing is changing for many different reasons.

A lot of coders today are asking themselves if they should go back to school or if they should go for their certification. What should they do in order to receive payments? It is a hard choice for a biller to make? In the 1980's and 1990's, you could easily take a stay at home course. You could get a job after studying coding for around 6 months. Now things are a lot more complex. Medical billers must now decide on the best course of action to learn this material.

It is important to see why so many people look the necessary skills to be in medical billing anymore. For starters, the new codes require a good education and possibly certification. Many men and women are finding out that they have to go back to school. It is important to note that the new codes are often hard for people to do correctly because there are so many of them. Can you believe that there are over 69,000 codes now? That is almost 5 times as much information.

The important functions of a medical biller today are that you need to be open to change. It is important for a medical biller to know a lot about anatomy and working directly with a medical doctor. Those that choose not to work alongside of a doctor say that they have no idea what is going on. This is mainly because you need to explain in detail why you are billing the insurance company to begin with. Under ICD-10, you must document as much information as you possibly can so that everyone is on the same page. The insurance companies want to know what the status is of the patient. Is there health improving or are they having to get more treatments. The important question that insurance companies are now asking is why? Why should I write your medical practice a check for $20,000? Why shouldn't it be $5,000? Does the patient really need all of the services that you are giving to them? Are you just trying to make more money off the insurance company? These are serious questions that insurance companies are asking today.

The worst decision that a doctor can make is to try and do medical billing themselves. It takes years of study to become an expert at billing. Doctors must work side by side with their coders. They must discuss anatomy with their biller so that they understand what to write down when submitting claims to the insurance companies. The more that you do this, the better turnout you will have. Medical billers today should know more about anatomy because they need to describe to the insurance company what is going on with the patient.




About the Author:



0 comments: